BD players are grossly unreliable. I'd say about 10% of all BD players manufactured are "screwy," and firmware updates be damned, they just will never work properly. The rest need the firmware updates. Some units are more screwy than the others (The Samsung BD1200 for instance).

Well, I still own my BDP-1200 and since it's last firmware update when Pirates came out, it has played everything perfectly. I think the firmware update thing has really settled down a lot and any player should be functional with the current firmware.

FWIW We have heard of players being screwy and dying from the HD DVD camp as well.

All my Blu-ray players work all the time, so I am losing belief in the argument of unreliability.

Blu-ray isn't perfect but if early adopters do not jump on board - expect LOW RES solutions to win just like with the MP3.

OMG Jerry, I can't believe you said this?

You expect people to be 'early adopters' after what just happened with HD-DVD? Why should I support (by early purchase) a emerging standard, I hope those consumers coming from HD-DVD only 'BUY-IN' to Bluray when the thing works as advertised! It is not about the $300, it is about Sony and their partners bringing Bluray to market before it was ready.

If something is poorly designed or implimented adopting it early is not going to save it, all you get is a device that doesn't work as advertised and in this case a resulting law suit!

Please don't suggest that we run out and buy these so Sony can keep things going...

I'm afraid you missed my point. Regardless of whether I had paid $30, $300, or $3,000 for a new BR player, my wife would have me lugging the thing back to the store to exchange it for a player that works.